Category Archives: Anunnaki

Author Essi Tolling discusses the Annunaki myths and their place in his Tilly Greenway series

Ridley Scott’s film Prometheus is perhaps the first to bring in specific references to the Annunaki, the ancient aliens who make their appearance in Sumerian tales dating back to 5,000BC. I’m particularly interested to see this story reaching a more mainstream audience, not least because it has specific relevance to my book series Tilly Greenway and the Secrets of the Ancient Keys.

For those of you who do not know about the Annunaki, the first-known stories about them were written in cuneiform on clay tablets some 7,500 years ago. These tablets, of which there are many thousands, have been unearthed from the sands of Iraq, Iran and neighbouring areas. Whilst they range over a wide number of topics, from the creation of the world to the Flood, they all talk of a group of gods and goddesses, called the Annunaki, who visited the Earth some 250,000 years ago.

But are the tales myth or do they refer to real events? Were these gods and goddesses figments of imagination, or were they in fact three-dimensional extra-terrestrials who landed on Earth a quarter of a million years ago? This is a debate that has raged quietly behind closed doors for a long time. Now it is being opened to a wider audience.

Well-known early depiction of one of the Annunaki “gods” – note how much larger he is than the humans shown in the carving

I believe that there are many truths hidden under the label of “myth” or “legend”. So let’s take a look at the story of the Annuna-ki and see if we can find any evidence for them being more than simple flights of fancy.

The Sumerian word Annunaki translates as “those who came to Earth from the sky/heavens”, the “ki” standing for Earth. In the Tilly Greenway tales, I call them simply The Anuna – “those who are from the sky” – because the tablets make it very clear that these early gods/space-travellers visited many other planets as well as our own.

Early in the Prometheus film we hear about a “star map” that gives directions to the planet where the aliens in the movie come from. This star map is real. Artefacts bearing its design have been discovered on every major continent, all virtually identical. (In Watchers, it features very early on, in Tilly’s dream).

This in itself is remarkable, bearing in mind there was not supposed to be much travel between places such as South America and Africa until relatively recently. How, and why, would separate civilizations create the very same story, with identical images, if there were not some unifying agent? The collective subconscious is powerful for sure, but something like this is too much to be dismissed as mere “coincidence”.

Who were the Annunaki and what were they doing here?

In Prometheus, the line of enquiry as to who the Annunaki were and what happened after they arrived on Earth is not answered (perhaps it will be in a second film?). In the Tilly Greenway tales (which are really a modern day rendering of the most widespread and oldest legends) I explore the idea in depth.

In much the same way that myths contain hidden truths, the accepted version of history often conceals many lies. There’s a simple reason for this: victors always seek to wipe out any threat to their control by asserting their own supremacy. You could say that the accepted version of history is as much propaganda as it is a genuine record of events.

It’s not surprising, then, that when conventional wisdom is challenged, those who walk the corridors of the Establishment do their best to laugh their challengers out of court. After all, they have a vested interest in maintaining their version of events, no matter how false they may be.

Right now, most modern historians and archaeologists ridicule the idea of an alien race visiting Earth at any point in its history. Yet, as time passes and more and more discoveries are made (many of them, like Gobekli Tepi, forcing us to re-think our concepts of how far back the earliest civilizations go), some are beginning to stand against the tide, especially when it comes to the possibility of early civilizations being far more developed than we have thought.

The Creation Myth – Fact or Fiction?

With over 100,000 clay tablets covered in cuneiform, the Sumerian tales are too long to do more than touch on them in one blog post (we’ll revisit them in future) but the essential story is this: whilst here, the “ones who came to the Earth from the sky” (whether you choose to call them gods or extra-terrestrials is up to you) discovered a primitive hominid, presumably an ape of some kind. They then used advanced techniques to create a hybrid species, mixing their own DNA with that of the hominids to create a “worker” to mine gold for them.

One fascinating point for me here is that the tablets speak specifically of a number of medical procedures that were carried out by Annunaki scientists that were thousands of years ahead of their time. My question here is: how would those who wrote the tablets even have known about transfusions, transplants and so on if they were not happening at that time?

It was not an easy process. The tablets talk of many failed experiments in which the half-hominid, half-Annunaki “babies” were born with serious medical defects. Modern day genetic experiments have come across exactly the same issues, including the sterility of genetically-engineered hybrids – something that crops up in the Sumerian tales.

It is only when the chief Annunaki scientists use surrogate mothers from the Annunaki females (rather than the hominid females) that they are able to produce offspring that can both survive and breed. According to the tablets, these offspring were the forerunners of homeo sapiens.

In other words, thousands of clay tablets from one of the earliest known human civilisations, state quite clearly that our ancestors were all hybrids between a terrestrial and an extra-terrestrial race!

Is this such a huge leap of faith? It would certainly explain the sudden and extreme advancement in our intellect that happened somewhere between 250,000 and 150,000 years ago, for which no one has yet come up with a good answer. It might also explain other mysteries, but that is something to leave for another time. Let’s just say that the potential for a cover-up is huge, which is why the Tilly Greenway saga is as much a conspiracy-story as a fantasy!

Why would I, or anyone else, suggest that there might be more to these clay tablets than meets the eye (apart from the fact that it makes for an interesting background to a novel!)? One reason is the extraordinary similarity between the Sumerian myths and those told elsewhere. Another is the unmistakable correlation between aspects of the Sumerian tales and passages that are contained within the Bible, where the very same story of the creation of mankind is told, except that the Anunnaki have been replaced by certain aspects of Yahweh.

The parallels are striking. In the Sumerian stories, the first male hybrid created by the Annunaki is called the Adamu. He and his female partner are kept in a place called The Edin. They gain knowledge which displeases some of the Annunaki hierarchy and they are removed from The Edin to fend for themselves.

Bear in mind that the Sumerian tablets pre-date the Bible scrolls by several thousand years. Is it possible, therefore, that they had no influence at all upon the scribes of the most-read “book” in the world?

For me, the “coincidences” are too great to ignore. And it doesn’t stop there. The Sumerian tales talk of the Annunaki being much taller than humans. Are there references in the Bible to giant creatures? Yes there are. Do the giants in the Bible interbreed with the indigenous population? Yes they (or their offspring, or the “sons of God”) do.

Here are some of them (my italics):

“When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.” Genesis 6: 1-4

“But Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, “Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it.” Then the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are.” So they brought to the people of Israel a bad report of the land that they had spied out, saying, “The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great height. And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.” Numbers 13: 30-33

“The Emim formerly lived there, a people great and many, and tall as the Anakim.” Deuteronomy 2:10

“For only Og the king of Bashan was left of the remnant of the Rephaim. Behold, his bed was a bed of iron. Is it not in Rabbah of the Ammonites? Nine cubits was its length, and four cubits its breadth, according to the common cubit.” Deuteronomy 3:11

You can see from these quotations that the writers accepted the presence of giants on Earth. Note too the echo of the Sumerian word “Annunaki” in the references to the “sons of Anak” and the “Anakim” – both of whom are described as being much taller than regular humans. (For those of you who like your sci-fi, you’ll recall that Darth Vader’s name, before he donned the helmet and heavy-breathing act, was “Anakin”)

Of course, the references to the Nephilim and the sons of God are not clear cut. Are they the same, or different? There is certainly nothing explicit here about aliens from outer-space! But whoever they were, they were clearly giants.

I’ll revisit this topic of the role of giants in our history another time, especially the references to the “Watchers” or Fallen Angels which come into a number of the scrolls that were edited-out of the Bible some 1600 years ago (if you are interested, have a look at the Book of Enoch, Ethiopian text).

Tales of the Fallen Angels run deep in our psyches

To finish-up for today, I’ll just float another interesting point out there. The Sumerian tablets say that the creation of the Adamu and other hybrids took place in what we call South Africa. This is the very location that the mitochondrial DNA of the first human female, to whom we are ALL related, is now known to have originated. We have only recently discovered this, thanks to the advance in our understanding of genetics.

Could it be just “another coincidence” that stories written 7,500 years ago pointed to exactly the same place of origin as our scientists have only just discovered? Of course it could. But it’s an interesting one…

Whether myth or truth, the whole rigmarole of the “ancient aliens who visited Earth” makes for an exciting back-history to the plot of a series of books, which is why they form the backbone to the tale of Tilly Greenway and the Secrets of the Ancient Keys, a work of fiction in which I delve deep into our past from a very contemporary setting.

The story draws on much documented history and my study of different myths and legends from all over the world, but essentially it is still a story, a new rendering of some of the oldest-known creation-myths of all, rather than an allegory.

What I can promise you, however, is that my research has taken me to some very interesting frontiers, beyond any of those that are currently circulated in public. As such, the series will not draw its head back into a shell, as Dan Brown’s Lost Symbol did. There are some eyebrow-raising revelations to come.

You can certainly expect plenty of dark intrigue and deeds of evil as the series progresses, as well as riddles and prophecies both old and new. Then again you can expect plenty of good old-fashioned adventure, with mythical and magical creatures too! That’s the fun of blending fact and fiction. At the end of the day, it’s just a story. A bit like life, really.

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Essi Tolling is the author of Watchers the first book in the Tilly Greenway and the Secrets of the Ancient Keys series. For more see essitolling.com

Like this:

The new Ridley Scott movie Prometheus is an interesting one for those interested in Annunaki theories. In interviews Scott has openly acknowledged that the story was heavily inspired by Erik Von Daniken’s ancient astronaut theories as per his book Chariot of the Gods.

Scott says:

there’s a writer, Erich von Däniken. One of his most famous books was called Chariots of the Gods. Everyone thinks he was out of his mind, you know… …. Things have changed so dramatically that you can start looking at the idea that all our history can be completely wrong and misguided. Because at some point someone has to put a statement down and have their own thesis, have their own theories. That was then later accepted or later is gradually dissolved and re-drawn or reworked. So now you’ve got the whole changed attitude with NASA, the church and I think even Hawking. Over the last thirty years have gone from “It’s highly unlikely that there’s anyone else in our galaxy, any other force, being in our galaxy,” to now, where they’re conceding that there are probably thousands of different lifeforms in this galaxy. And I think Hawking actually said, “Let’s hope they don’t visit.” And I think the church has conceded as well that it would not be against the word of God if we conceded that there are other lifeforms in this galaxy.

So, if you take that out, then the door is open. To me, it’s entirely logical. It’s entirely ridiculous to believe that we are the only ones here. That’s why my first thought is that for us to be sitting here right now is actually mathematically impossible without a lot of assistance. Who assisted? Who made the right decisions? Who was pushing and pulling to adjust us? That’s a fair question. Full interview here filmophillia.com

In another interview he says:

“NASA and the Vatican agree that is almost mathematically impossible that we can be where we are today without there being a little help along the way,” Scott said. “That’s what we’re looking at (in the film), at some of Eric van Daniken’s ideas of how did we humans come about.” Full interview here hollywoodreporter.com

For more analysis of some of the images and themes used in the movie and how they tie in with Sumerian artifacts you can check out prometheusnews.net. And on the Prometheus movie forums Annunaki interest is already growing. Take a look here.

Review of Prometheus

Well we’ve just seen the movie and it is a treat for those who are familiar with the history of the Annunaki. For those not familiar with the Annunaki back history, some of the more subtle elements of this movie might be missed so it’s worth reading up on them a bit before seeing it. We don’t want to give spoilers but there is a lot of Annunaki back plot implied in this movie.

The story begins on the Isle of Skye in Scotland where a fictional cave painting is discovered that predates all the other (real) scenes from around the world depicting the same star map. They interpret the map as an invitation and the main premise of the movie is of this team setting off to try to get in touch with the original creators. They call them the Engineers and we don’t recall the word Annunaki being mentioned at all, (maybe once early on but will have to see it again to check). It is all about the Annunaki though, and the idea that this might not go according to plan is well worked out as a ‘new’ story.

Though we are now in far into the future in this movie, the story is equally relevant to the early sumerian texts and takes the idea behind the flood, according to the tales of Enki and Enlil, and uses elements of this story in a new way in this movie. There are some great reenacted scenes of some of the real clay tablets depicting ancient aliens from various world locations. Also there is a great recreation of what the Annunaki may have looked like, but we’re not going to say more about that in case we spoil the surprise.

The downside is that it is ultimately an action movie with plenty of regular and standard sci fi plotting – i.e. survival, contamination, mutation, battle etc. But it is all very watchable and exciting. However having to give so much room to the action, leaves less room for information and more detail and background on the Annunaki and all of the information written on the walls. David, the ships android, spent the two years traveling on Prometheus studying ancient sumerian and other languages and we feel he could have been used more to translate the inscriptions and maybe pad out the story of what this location is really about and why. When the ‘truth’ is discovered at the end it seems to come out of nowhere and it almost felt like a scene was missing or perhaps was cut.

The plot hole for us was surrounding Elizabeth’s boyfriend. Why did he go on a drinking spree when they had made the discovery of a lifetime? And why wasn’t he in the room with Elizabeth watching every step of her genetic analysis of the body they found? It felt like they just wanted to have an excuse to get rid of him as soon as possible when he had fulfilled his function as a means to get Elizabeth pregnant with a contaminated hybrid baby.

All that said, it’s refreshing to see a movie that at long last nods a creative head to one of the most interesting stories of all the world histories (or mythologies depending on your viewpoint); a story that until now has been completely ignored by the mainstream media.

There will be a sequel we would think, based on how the film ends. Lets hope that the next movie will be even braver and really look at the back story of Enlil, Enki and co and have some fun too imagining what they may be up to now, or at least in the future now of the characters in Prometheus.

Very watchable, with a great cast and exciting action too!

Did you see it yet? We’d love to hear your thoughts…

Some other hints of Annunaki mythology in the popular media

The aliens in discontinued (but excellent!) TV series The Event, look like us but age differently. They are already at war with each other. Sofia like Enki is pro humanity and doesn’t want them injured. Thomas like Enlil isn’t too bothered about what happens to the human population. Sound familiar?

V meanwhile is going with the reptilian agenda. The reptilian idea may come from the strange appearance of the ‘Gods’ represented in early Sumerian artifacts and the many references to serpents in numerous world mythologies. But contrary to the V aliens who are bent on using and destroying the human race for their own ends, the Annunaki chose the flood option as they couldn’t control the rebellious, fast breeding humans who were in some way too unruly for the rigid Annunaki. They didn’t stay and take over the population, rather they set about educating the population, passing on skills and various rites and then seemed to disappear.

Could the Annunaki have reptilian origins? It would be a difficult genetic mix and the tablets are clear that the created humans were Annuna/Earth hominid hybrids and were like enough to the Annunaki to be attractive to them and suitable breeding partners. We don’t look like the representations in the Sumerian figurines (see picture below)

From ancientaliens.5u.com

But perhaps if we all originated on the same planet a reptilian and a hominid could be crossbred with very advanced genetic engineering. Could a species of dinosaur have evolved to the stage where they became intelligent space faring beings, who set off to colonize new worlds and came back for a visit? That would make cross breeding with hominids easier as we would at least be from the same evolutionary tree. It would also explain the use of bird imagery in some ancient Sumerian depictions of the Gods, as the evolved ancestor of the dinosaur on present day earth is the bird.

If this option is possible lets hope they are not like the bunch in V!

And what of the movie, The Adjustment Bureau, where a race of long living people that look like just us (but with hats on!), are overseeing our development to ensure we do not destroy ourselves or the planet. This more benevolent view credits the Annunaki with a bit more social interest than the Sumerian tablets revealed to date imply. It does flow with modern conspiracy theories, which claim that some of the Annunaki never left but are still here controlling the world behind the scenes. The conspiracies never see this in a good way. Could the Adjustment Bureau be performing a subtle perception adjustment? Now there’s a new conspiracy theory in the making!

And in books, the Tilly Greenway & the Secrets of the Ancient Keys series is, according to author Essi Tolling, a modern day conspiracy story with the Annunaki “history” very subtly at its core. Though written as a young adult fantasy, Watchers, the first in the series, has equal appeal to adults with its rich symbolism, mystery school references, dragon mythology, modern ideas of global shadow organisations controlling governments from behind the scenes and genetic manipulation.

Tolling cryptically comments: “Sometimes fiction holds hidden truths, that stay hidden for good reason.” He has promised us an article on his views of the Annunaki and how they figure in his stories, so stay tuned as this will appear in the coming weeks.

Here’s an interesting presentation by Klaus Dona. Dona is an artefact researcher from Austria. Though initially involved in mainstream research, during the course of his work, he came across archaeological findings that were hard to explain and this led him to put together an exhibition of little known and under reported inexplicable objects.

The slide show here from a Project Camelot interview is very interesting as it shows that many of the objects have an extra layer that we can’t see, namely they light up under a blacklight, meaning that they were created with materials which emit UV light. This is extremely interesting as it implies that the creators of such works must have had a capacity to see in the UV spectrum or else why create pieces which shine in such wavelengths?

Birds and many insects see in the UV spectrum, so this ability is not unusual. It just that it is not particularly common to modern day humans. As most of these items come from a time period of approx 10,000 years ago, they shed a very different light (no pun intended!) on who might have been living on Earth at that time.

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